Unqualified
“Who was it again, Director An?”
The tone was openly mocking. He seemed utterly dumbfounded that she had the nerve to sit there in full uniform, as if she belonged.
“Yes, that’s correct.”
His large frame, paired with that blatant smirk, made her feel as if her shoulders were being crushed, shrinking her smaller by the second.
Her mind could hold its ground. Her heart had been sealed shut well enough. But her body betrayed her.
To her, he was still too vast, too distant an existence.
Could she even reach him? The mere thought of stretching out her hand had always made her heart plummet. That was the kind of man he was.
“I almost didn’t recognize you.”
Every time that strangely edged voice continued, her chest grew tighter.
As expected. Kang Tae-yul. Was it impossible to escape this in front of him?
Like a single melody that had settled into entirely different memories, the weak An Seol-hye from nine years ago no longer existed in this world.
She had truly believed that. Yet now her body, her mind, and even her heart seemed to be crumbling into chaos.
Seol-hye drew a short, steadying breath, striking a fragile truce between reason and her still-immature emotions, then lifted her chin slightly.
Just as she always did—no matter the place or the person—she squared her shoulders with confidence and held her spine perfectly straight.
The deeply carved gaze staring down at her felt unmistakably curt.
“Hello.”
As if there were any chance she was doing well.
She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the large, smooth hand rubbing his forehead—a hand that was refined rather than rough—while his mouth twisted with a smile laced in disbelief.
“You’re even asking me how I’ve been. You really have grown up, haven’t you?”
She didn’t know what kind of memories he carried, but one thing was certain: they were not on terms to exchange pleasantries.
He gave his perfectly knotted tie a sharp tug, then took one bold step forward. Her body instinctively recoiled until her hips bumped against the bookshelf.
“From the look of things, the last nine years seem to have been a real headache in more ways than one.”
Was it the jarring choice of words? Her heart flinched as though the fragile compromise she had just made with reason was about to shatter.
A sensation swept over her, as if some profound distortion had taken place.
“Somehow, this house is full of nothing but unqualified people.”
Knowing that, in a way, she herself was the most unqualified of all, she had no grounds to protest. She offered no response at all.
She simply bit down on the soft inside of her lip, struggling to keep her mind from slipping into haze. The heavy pheromone scent brushing the tip of her nose didn’t help.
They were bound to cross paths countless times from now on, but she had hoped it wouldn’t be yet.
The sharpness she had felt when their eyes met in the kitchen should have been vaccination enough. Yet here they were, facing each other again—in this narrow space, no less.
“Don’t you think so, Director An?”
In the space of a blink, he lowered his head. His exquisitely sculpted features filled her vision one by one.
Seol-hye drew in a breath so deep her shoulders rose, then reached both arms behind her, groping along the bookshelf as she edged sideways.
At last a wall came into view, one that held a single framed portrait of a beautiful woman.
“Please excuse me.”
With that, Seol-hye left the room in a breathtakingly seamless match of word and action. Yet Tae-yul’s eyes remained fixed on the same spot.
On the place where the afterimage of that silhouette—once seen, almost impossible to erase—lingered far too vividly.
Perhaps because it was every bit as astounding as it had been nine years ago, the discomfort that began in her head traveled through her heart, pressed down on her stomach, and spread all the way between her thighs.
“Hah.”
The cigarette she had quit felt not merely necessary but urgent.
***
Seol-hye moved quickly toward Fides.
Three years earlier, Chairman Kang had handed the entire group over to his eldest son, In-seok, who held the position of president of Kang-an.
After that, rather than conducting business inside the company building, he began receiving key figures at Pax. Fides was the space created by restructuring the interior for that purpose.
It was not an ordinary reception room. It was reserved exclusively for private meetings with guests the chairman especially trusted or shared a particularly close bond with.
Naturally, both the owner family and the roughly sixty servants stationed at Pax came to use the choice of room as a clear indicator of a guest’s standing.
Whether Chairman Kang received someone in Fides or in the general reception room, Tempus, determined the visible hierarchy.
Above all, neither Do-yul, the executive director of Kang-an Group, nor Cha-yul, the managing director, had ever set foot inside Fides. Even Team Leader Jang, captain of the Owner Risk Management Team to which Seol-hye belonged, was no exception.
Yet today, once again, Seol-hye had been brought to Fides. It was the kind of thing that would set tongues wagging throughout the household.
“Director Jo, wait outside.”
“Understood, Chairman.”
While Director Jo stepped away, Seol-hye calmly took her usual seat. She tightened the muscles in her abdomen, trying to suppress the chronic tension that always crept over her during these private meetings with the chairman.
“Director An, do you understand why I summoned Tae-yul?”
“I believe it was a decision born from concern over the influence a vacancy would exert.”
“As you know, there isn’t a single person we can truly trust.”
“It seems you judged this to be the most suitable time to establish the succession framework.”
“Exactly. And swiftly.”
On a day that could fairly be called a seismic shift for the Kang family, the fact that Chairman Kang had deliberately called her to this meal and brought her to Fides meant there were substantial reasons.
At the same time, Seol-hye had already anticipated the topic he wished to discuss with her. She had prepared accordingly through basic preliminary research.
“That is why I would like you to design this project as well.”
“I will prepare it without delay.”
Chairman Kang’s expression softened further, clearly pleased. He had been inwardly worried she might refuse, citing her past entanglement with Tae-yul.
“Has Cha-yul been quiet lately?”
“Yes. Fortunately he has been attending counseling on the island regularly, and he has not visited any clubs since the incident.”
“Then we can go ahead and reorganize the family support team.”
“Of course. I will request support from Team Leader Jang.”
Chairman Kang knew better than anyone that Seol-hye possessed the rare ability to grasp everything from the slightest hint, so no further explanation was necessary.
Even so, because the events of the past were by no means trivial, his old man’s caution refused to vanish at once.
“Still, the business world’s eyes will be fixed on whether Tae-yul can prove his management capabilities.”
“I will complete the handover as quickly as possible and take full charge.”
Only after receiving her firm assurance did Chairman Kang smile with satisfaction. Then he suddenly broke into a harsh cough. Director Jang, waiting outside, rushed in immediately.
“Chairman, are you all right?”
“Director An.”
“Yes. Please don’t worry and rest, Chairman. I will go and deliver the message to Young Master Tae-yul myself.”
Young Master. The title she had used from his earliest childhood until he turned twenty slipped out naturally, before she could stop it.
This was why habits were so frightening.
No matter how firmly she held the title of control tower for the Kang-an owner family, the words had proven she was still nothing more than the son of the madam her mother had once served and the daughter of a lowly servant.
“I always feel reassured when I have a Director An like you.”
“I still have many shortcomings.”
“We’ve gained one more truly lacking fellow. I’ll be counting on you going forward.”
At the chairman’s gesture, Director Jo quickly took hold of the wheelchair handles.
“As far as I know, the young master will be different.”
The words had sprung from genuine sincerity. She had not crafted them to please the chairman, nor were they empty flattery.
In her memory, he had excelled in every field without exception.
He was the one who had shown her what perfection truly meant.
Chairman Kang surely already knew that Tae-yul possessed abilities no one else could hope to imitate.
Perhaps the very reason he had pushed for President Kang’s arrest was to create the justification needed to summon him and seat him at the very top.
“If that is how Director An sees it, I am relieved.”
Seol-hye offered a warm smile and bowed respectfully toward Chairman Kang’s back as Director Jo turned the wheelchair.
And she thought:
The day might come sooner than expected when this face—always so kindly disposed toward her alone—would twist because of her.